...Overall that is on Holland. I don't think he sucks but as I've said before, because the Wings have been so good for so long and transitioned through different eras so successfully, I'm surprised at how unprepared this team looks for Lidstrom's retirement.

You're using Holland's success against him. Making successful transitions in the past doesn't mean that those transitions are so easy that we should always be successful at them.

We've lost three top-4 defensemen in two years. In that time, there has been ONE top-pair defenseman to hit UFA, and only a few other UFAs or affordable trades that are any better than what we have, and I'm not sure that any of them are so much better that it would really make any difference.

Let's see the list of GMs that have gone through something like that without a hitch. It's so easy there must be dozens. Just give me 5 off the top of your head...

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="haroldsnepsts" data-cid="2344750" data-time="1358894978"><p>
If memory serves, that fell in his lap. Hossa's agent called him. Holland thought they had no shot before that.<br />
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I don't know much about Huskins. Seems like a decent price for what's basically a plug.<br />
<br />
<br />
Obviously the injuries aren't Holland's fault. I don't blame him for that. But going into the season for the Wings to have even a halfway decent defense it required a lot of players stepping up and playing at a higher level than they have. Kronwall, Ericsson, Smith, Quincey. And that's with everyone healthy. Take one or two guys out and it gets real ugly real fast. That's where we are now, two games into the season.<br />
<br />
Overall that is on Holland. I don't think he sucks but as I've said before, because the Wings have been so good for so long and transitioned through different eras so successfully, I'm surprised at how unprepared this team looks for Lidstrom's retirement.</p></blockquote>

Interesting signing. Having watched him as a Shark and when he was with the Ducks, I would be okay with him as 6-7, and based on yesterday's game the Wings need someone back there with a touch of experience.

He's positionally good, is 50/50 on outlet passes, and plays a conservative game. He'll dependably take a hit to make a play. I'm told he's big, but his game along the boards isn't much and he's not going to clear the crease. A grinder he ain't. He was either good or awful on the PK - never tepid, never great.

He's not going to take the D to the level it needs to be at, but he's better than your average plug. I wouldn't be surprised to see him stay on the roster for as long as the Wings play this season but hope they can make him irrelevant by this time next year.

You're using Holland's success against him. Making successful transitions in the past doesn't mean that those transitions are so easy that we should always be successful at them.

We've lost three top-4 defensemen in two years. In that time, there has been ONE top-pair defenseman to hit UFA, and only a few other UFAs or affordable trades that are any better than what we have, and I'm not sure that any of them are so much better that it would really make any difference.

Let's see the list of GMs that have gone through something like that without a hitch. It's so easy there must be dozens. Just give me 5 off the top of your head...

You make it sound as if Holland had no idea these defensemen were leaving until they were emptying their locker.

I'm not saying it should all go without a hitch but look at our defensive corps. Holland had lead time on 2 of the 3. Anyone with half a brain could've figured there's a good chance Lids would retire around 40. And Holland even got to talk to him so I bet he had a pretty good guess as to when Lids would hang them up. Same with Stuart. That situation was known to all of us here. And it wouldn't surprise me if Rafalski gave him some indication as well.

Holland should've been considering the defense in a post Lidstrom era years ago.

It just reinforces my belief that Holland is a good tinkerer and has succeeded by making tweaks to the team and system he inherited, but as the quality of his replacements continued dropping the system has become less and less effective. Yet there doesn't seem to be any new system or thinking with the type of players he brings in. It just felt like more patchwork to the same old system in spite of so many lesser replacement parts.

Overall that is on Holland. I don't think he sucks but as I've said before, because the Wings have been so good for so long and transitioned through different eras so successfully, I'm surprised at how unprepared this team looks for Lidstrom's retirement.

It wasn't like the Holland just sat around though. They put offers out there on players like Wisnewski and Suter, and these players either wanted to play in a specific place or for the most money.

So I go back to my earlier statement....

I suppose Holland either has to pull a gun on free agents or pull a gun on other teams and demand that they give us their best players for our scraps. That is the only thing that will make Wings fans happy at this point.

It wasn't like the Holland just sat around though. They put offers out there on players like Wisnewski and Suter, and these players either wanted to play in a specific place or for the most money.

So I go back to my earlier statement....

I suppose Holland either has to pull a gun on free agents or pull a gun on other teams and demand that they give us their best players for our scraps. That is the only thing that will make Wings fans happy at this point.

You ignored the part of my post where I said Holland should've had a plan for the post-Lidstrom era years ago. I'm not just talking about last season. Holland being involved in the Suter sweepstakes only revealed the total lack of effective transitioning for Lidstrom's retirement.

And Holland is up against the same obstacles as other GM's, yet they somehow manage to land guys. I don't want to derail this thread anymore than I already have but as I've said it's not just about one deal. It's about a slow decay and tiny adjustments that have become less and less effective. As Babcock said at the end of the last playoffs, the team is moving in the wrong direction.

I honestly don't think the team will be terrible this season, but I look at our blueline and wonder what exactly Holland has been thinking.

You ignored the part of my post where I said Holland should've had a plan for the post-Lidstrom era years ago. I'm not just talking about last season. Holland being involved in the Suter sweepstakes only revealed the total lack of effective transitioning for Lidstrom's retirement.

And Holland is up against the same obstacles as other GM's, yet they somehow manage to land guys. I don't want to derail this thread anymore than I already have but as I've said it's not just about one deal. It's about a slow decay and tiny adjustments that have become less and less effective. As Babcock said at the end of the last playoffs, the team is moving in the wrong direction.

I honestly don't think the team will be terrible this season, but I look at our blueline and wonder what exactly Holland has been thinking.

You ignored the part of my post where I said Holland should've had a plan for the post-Lidstrom era years ago. I'm not just talking about last season. Holland being involved in the Suter sweepstakes only revealed the total lack of effective transitioning for Lidstrom's retirement.

And Holland is up against the same obstacles as other GM's, yet they somehow manage to land guys. I don't want to derail this thread anymore than I already have but as I've said it's not just about one deal. It's about a slow decay and tiny adjustments that have become less and less effective. As Babcock said at the end of the last playoffs, the team is moving in the wrong direction.

I honestly don't think the team will be terrible this season, but I look at our blueline and wonder what exactly Holland has been thinking.

No, I didn't ignore the part of your post. Wisnewski was up for signing the previous season. I didn't think I had to address every free agent that Holland went after in the last 5+ years.

I believe Holland has made a concerted effort to improve the team since he took over. His effort to sign new players every offseason just prove that. Now, he hasn't been able to land anyone huge either.

I will also say that I agree with something you mentioned in another post, and that is that they should have paired Lidstrom with Smith in his last season. Smith could have learned from the best, and he didn't get the chance. That depresses me greatly.

You make it sound as if Holland had no idea these defensemen were leaving until they were emptying their locker.

I'm not saying it should all go without a hitch but look at our defensive corps. Holland had lead time on 2 of the 3. Anyone with half a brain could've figured there's a good chance Lids would retire around 40. And Holland even got to talk to him so I bet he had a pretty good guess as to when Lids would hang them up. Same with Stuart. That situation was known to all of us here. And it wouldn't surprise me if Rafalski gave him some indication as well.

Holland should've been considering the defense in a post Lidstrom era years ago.

It just reinforces my belief that Holland is a good tinkerer and has succeeded by making tweaks to the team and system he inherited, but as the quality of his replacements continued dropping the system has become less and less effective. Yet there doesn't seem to be any new system or thinking with the type of players he brings in. It just felt like more patchwork to the same old system in spite of so many lesser replacement parts.

You're falling into the same trap as every other Holland critic in equating the moves Holland did make to "nothing" because they weren't good enough to suit you. But that's really beside the point. Despite General Hawk's claims to the contrary, knowing isn't actually half the battle. It's still not easy to make those transitions.

If it was, you should have no trouble rattling off that list of GMs who have done it.

You say you don't expect it to go off without a hitch, but it seems like that's exactly what you expect. Like you expect to make that kind of transition without any risk of missing the playoffs. That's unreasonable, and ironically you only have that expectation because of how well the team has been managed under Holland's tenure.

You're falling into the same trap as every other Holland critic in equating the moves Holland did make to "nothing" because they weren't good enough to suit you. But that's really beside the point. Despite General Hawk's claims to the contrary, knowing isn't actually half the battle. It's still not easy to make those transitions.

If it was, you should have no trouble rattling off that list of GMs who have done it.

You say you don't expect it to go off without a hitch, but it seems like that's exactly what you expect. Like you expect to make that kind of transition without any risk of missing the playoffs. That's unreasonable, and ironically you only have that expectation because of how well the team has been managed under Holland's tenure.

Very true and like the old saying goes nothing lasts forever sooner or later this new nhl was going to catch up with Holland he has made decent moves in the past Shanny,Hull,Luc,Hasek as well as some not so good ones (Quincy) but all in all we have become to spoiled and believe we need the best of the best every year when in fact not every player in the nhl wants to play for the Wings there are plenty of other good teams out there they want to play for and try to get a cup with after 21 Years i feel blessed we have made the playoffs won 4 cups and had some great seasons now i think we need to all come back down to earth plant our feet and be humble because the next few years are going to be Luke Warm at best we might steal a couple great players but than again we might not so what we see is what we get

Ahh, so Holland's reputation as a low-baller preceded him then. Either way, Wisnewski was right on the money with his comments.

esteef

Is that a bad thing? Do we want players that won't take a pay cut to secure more talent for them to play with? I mean wasn't that how this team was built for a long time with no one making more than lidstrom?

Wisniewski would have been a trainwreck here. Him and kronwall would be a disaster as a top pairing, it's not that Wisniewski is bad, it's just he's so aggressive, he would need to change his game completely, or Kronwall would have to. I guess you could split them up, but it still wouldn't help our main issue on the backend, and that's defensive skill. Wisniewski would just be another player on the backend giving up odd man rushes and turning the puck over, except he would be making 3rd most money on the team.

You're falling into the same trap as every other Holland critic in equating the moves Holland did make to "nothing" because they weren't good enough to suit you. But that's really beside the point. Despite General Hawk's claims to the contrary, knowing isn't actually half the battle. It's still not easy to make those transitions.

If it was, you should have no trouble rattling off that list of GMs who have done it.

You say you don't expect it to go off without a hitch, but it seems like that's exactly what you expect. Like you expect to make that kind of transition without any risk of missing the playoffs. That's unreasonable, and ironically you only have that expectation because of how well the team has been managed under Holland's tenure.

And you're falling into every Holland apologist's trap, excusing his current failures because of successes in the distant past which he arguably had little to do with.

You're falling into the same trap as every other Holland critic in equating the moves Holland did make to "nothing" because they weren't good enough to suit you. But that's really beside the point. Despite General Hawk's claims to the contrary, knowing isn't actually half the battle. It's still not easy to make those transitions.

Look, we're all making this way more complicated than it needs to be, than it is.

I'll say it again: you lose Rafalski, Stuart, Lidstrom, you, at the very least, bring in a heavy. No way should Kronwall - Ericsson/Quincey/White/Smith/Huskins/Lashoff be our first pairing. Common sense, really. Why is it so hard to swallow/understand?

So many of us treat Holland as if he's utterly infallible, incapable of being in the wrong. "He mades a mistake? He dropped the ball? No, you're just a Holland critic. You're just spoiled." It's just as silly as The Holland Bashing.

Ken Holland is the best GM in the league. But the way he's handled our D corps (and, arguably, the team at large) lately borders, I think, on braindead. It's almost as if he really does want that first overall pick. I have no other explanation for the sheer lack of those trademark Ken Holland Smarts (see, e.g., "Lets save money and sit on it, and then do it again next season, and then do it again! OH NO, NOW WE'RE IN TROUBLE! SALO! CARLE! SUTER! HEY, Y'KNOW WHAT'S GREAT? BUILDING FROM WITHIN!)

It's weird. Really, really weird. (To which someone will say, "No, it's called parity/not having Nick Lidstrom/transition etc., and I need to adjust my expectations and reconcile them with Reality." To which I preemptively say: I know you, are but what am I?)

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!" - Kierkegaard

Is that a bad thing? Do we want players that won't take a pay cut to secure more talent for them to play with? I mean wasn't that how this team was built for a long time with no one making more than lidstrom?

Wisniewski would have been a trainwreck here. Him and kronwall would be a disaster as a top pairing, it's not that Wisniewski is bad, it's just he's so aggressive, he would need to change his game completely, or Kronwall would have to. I guess you could split them up, but it still wouldn't help our main issue on the backend, and that's defensive skill. Wisniewski would just be another player on the backend giving up odd man rushes and turning the puck over, except he would be making 3rd most money on the team.

The Wings are no longer attractive enough to warrant less money and players are figuring this out. Everything else you posted is speculation and nothing more. Wiz would easily be our 2nd best d-man right now.

Suter has been the only defenseman that would significantly help us. And guess what? Holland went after him hard. Carle is on a 5 year deal and is another Ian White.

He can't just create defenseman out of thin air. If there aren't any available why would you just settle with a mediocre defenseman for the long term? Especially when you consider the uncertainty of the new CBA, and the overpaid contracts that were handed out.

Then again we just fall into the, "He should have done something", and I ask "What", and goes on and on.

If we don't get a top pairing dman by next season I'll be very critical of Holland, especially if they start moving at the deadline. But until now I just haven't seen a move that I'd have supported to make this team good for years to come.

The Wings are no longer attractive enough to warrant less money and players are figuring this out. Everything else you posted is speculation and nothing more. Wiz would easily be our 2nd best d-man right now.

esteef

Yea, our top 2 defenseman would be offensive minded. Wisniewski doesn't even play on the penalty kill(5th lowest time played on his team), and you would be paying this guy 5.5 million for 5 years. I'm sorry but we need to save that money to find the right defenseman. Not just anyone.